Regarding killboxes and how to fix them

[VoiD]

One thing I never understood:

If I were to attack a settlement and I noticed the other side is using a series of exploits to take down my attack, divide my units, make them follow a dumb/long way possibly filled with traps ending in some sort of killbox I'd either siege it out, literally, just camping outside and destroying all the resources, denying the use of land and blocking caravans until the enemy comes out, or bombard them with mortars, or even the simplest solution: Just start blasting away at all the walls and tear down the entire structure using ranged weapons.

I don't really understand why the AI doesn't do anything, I get that killboxes exploit the AI pathfinding by making rougher terrain in areas they could advance and making it seem faster to follow a dumb path, but why won't the AI just start blasting at every wall they see instead?

Colonists are supposed to defend their structures, not the other way around, if the player is leaving unatended walls outside all the AI has to do is destroy everything and make them waste a ton of resources, and then they will have to fight out in the open anyway because all of the walls are gone.

[Ashardalon]

i get it now, you have the royalty dlc thats specifically pandering to people like you
giving completely overpowered quest rewards to make playing like your pawns life is meaningless more accomodating

[LIMP BISQUICK]

That being said I do honestly believe that many issues you've described and the changes over the years have happened specifically because of this issue, turrets, fire spam, ammo, door nerf, they are all related to trying to get rid of killboxes, not succeeding and doubling down on the next update, creating problems for the proper way of playing the game.

Yep, they're definitely related and the problems get worse just as you described it. That being said, I don't believe that option should be completely eliminated if people want to play like that. There is no 'proper way' to play it but yes, pawn engagement doesn't seem to be encouraged in vanilla gameplay with the flaws I mentioned. So I understand where you're coming from.

It's understandable with things like resource sink when it comes to turrets, but when it gets overdone with lackluster options it's quite easy for a player to start thinking I need this and that to protect this expensive turret if they decide to keep them around. Mazes seem to be more popular now than they used to be but I don't by how much.

~~Nya~~ eredeti hozzászólása:

Jibbles eredeti hozzászólása:

This game lacks security options and it lacks threat types that offer true variety. There's not enough to experiment with so many players will do what works/popular.

This is exactly how I feel, it feels like when it comes to most combat situations there is only a couple of ways to handle things if you don't just wanna get obliterated.

Many players feel this way. The lack of variety on all fronts. You have late game threats (mechanoids + infestations) appearing throughout the game with hardly any variation, just spammed.. same with security. I don't see how this provides healthy gameplay for beginners and experienced players.

[VoiD]

Ashardalon eredeti hozzászólása:

i get it now, you have the royalty dlc thats specifically pandering to people like you
giving completely overpowered quest rewards to make playing like your pawns life is meaningless more accomodating

The game has to include all DLC to be considered, it's all part of the official content, why would you even attempt to discuss anything and not include the DLC?

[Morkonan]

VoiD eredeti hozzászólása:

...I don't really understand why the AI doesn't do anything, I get that killboxes exploit the AI pathfinding by making rougher terrain in areas they could advance and making it seem faster to follow a dumb path, but why won't the AI just start blasting at every wall they see instead?..

The AI does do something, but it has "rules" that determines what it will do as well as what it can do.

No normal PC-Game AI that I've ever heard of actually "analyzes" a situation and then makes a "decision" based on all the available facts. "Chess" AI can do that, but it's dealing with a very concrete, limited, set of variables to examine.

Raider abilities are determined by the raid type. Why are there different types of raids, like Primitive, Pirate, Spacer, Mech, Mortar, Sapper, Attack Immediately, Wait to Attack, Kidnap, steal, break, kill stuffs, etc? What if they just did "everything a Raid might be expected to do?"

If that was the case, every Raid would be the same. Walls would be pretty meaningless. You wouldn't have much of an opportunity to engage in "building an intricately designed web of death" for certain Raids. The "reward" you felt when defeating them would also be less, since no carefully planned turret placement or a huge wall you devoted a lot of time and effort to build would be truly meaningful. You'd probably be overwhelmed pretty quick, too, by Raids that... had no rules and repeated Raids like that would put a great strain on your most precious resource - Your colonists.

I don't tend to build kill-boxes. At least, any that I do build are not designed as part of a foolproof base until/unless I decide I'm going to go all the way to "Victory." That's rare, since I'm usually ready to start over by that point.

My advice to you is this - Don't build classic Rimworld Kill-Boxes. Instead, focus on some decent walls, here and there, and emplacements of bunker-like constructions from which you can actively defend using your Colonists. That's generally what I do, but I'll still include a few turrets and traps, here and there. Why not? :)

[Ashardalon]

VoiD eredeti hozzászólása:

Ashardalon eredeti hozzászólása:

i get it now, you have the royalty dlc thats specifically pandering to people like you
giving completely overpowered quest rewards to make playing like your pawns life is meaningless more accomodating

The game has to include all DLC to be considered, it's all part of the official content, why would you even attempt to discuss anything and not include the DLC?

because the dlc turns valuable archetech into meaningles trinkets
gives your colonists weapons the ai cant ever use
and its all because the dev realized some people dont like actually being sensible and building fortifications
so he went away from the colony builder and he started making a rather lackluster rpg with horrible combat mechanics
i bought a colony builder, and in going to play it to build a colony

[LIMP BISQUICK]

No normal PC-Game AI that I've ever heard of actually "analyzes" a situation and then makes a "decision" based on all the available facts. "Chess" AI can do that, but it's dealing with a very concrete, limited, set of variables to examine.

There was actually some kind of rts halo game where the developers studied pros and implemented hundreds of strategies that they do to combat situations. Not countering your point here, I just thought that was interesting tidbit, the AI usually don't get that complex. I should probably find out which game that is exactly and play it at some point lol

The game has to include all DLC to be considered, it's all part of the official content, why would you even attempt to discuss anything and not include the DLC?

Well you're bringing up problems that stem from vanilla, and talking to players who don't own/ won't buy DLC. There are plenty of solutions/advantages that the DLC offers to vanilla problems but as far as I'm concern these things don't exist as they are not options in my gameplay. Normally, people exclude DLC mechanics in other games when discussing such issues.

[Noun]

Killboxes are not an exploit. And they are not even really that unrealistic. They are essentially a representation of courtyards that exist in real life.

If you do not like killboxes there are mods that change how the AI functions to make them less effective.

I would like to see seiges and sapping raids tweaked to be more threatening though.

Also people build structures to defend themselves, not the other way around. That is why trenches and fortifications existed.

[Choosechee]

First of all, I just want to say that people should listen to other people's opinions and not just instantly dismiss them if they don't align with theirs. How would you grow as a person otherwise? Of course, most people know this, but don't truly listen to other people because they think they're 100% right, no ifs and buts about it.

As for the matter at hand, I think killboxes are fine. They aren't 100% without risk, your pawns can still die due to the sheer amount of raiders that come in. As for why the raiders go into them instead of just blowing up the wall or something, the number one priority of a game should be gameplay, not realism. The game is built with killboxes in mind; the reason I believe the other types of raids exist is to spice up the gameplay, not because killboxes are a problem. I use killboxes, and I have fun with the game. There's more to the game than just raids.

Also, if we're going to talk about realism, there are a BUNCH of unrealistic things in this game. How do pawns mine without a pickaxe or drill? Why do female animals produce milk without needing to have a baby? Why can pawns heal so fast? The reason for all of these questions is that they are better that way for gameplay purposes. Now, I know your problem is that you think raids would be more fun if they were more realistic, not because you think that realism is always good. However, I think raids are fine in their unrealistic state. But that's just my opinion. That brings me to my last point.

You need to respect other people's opinions. It's okay to not want to use killboxes, no one is forcing you to do so. Look up some mods that change the enemy AI if you want to. If there aren't any to your satisfaction, go to the mod market and ask for one! But please, please don't try to force your opinion on others. What's fun for you might not be fun for someone else. Tynan"s opinion seems to align for, rather than against killboxes. But instead of locking down the game, and forcing others to play HIS way, he lets others choose to play THEIR way, and make and download mods to make the game just the way they like.

TL;DR Respect other people's opinions.

[Hoki]

it's been a while when i last encountered such an arrogant attitude here.

apparently only one person here seems enlightened and everyone else is just wrong, putting their individual knowledge and experience aside.

srsly void quit talking and come back when you've fixed your attitude. this aint a discussion.

[VoiD]

Hoki eredeti hozzászólása:

it's been a while when i last encountered such an arrogant attitude here.

apparently only one person here seems enlightened and everyone else is just wrong, putting their individual knowledge and experience aside.

srsly void quit talking and come back when you've fixed your attitude. this aint a discussion.

As soon as I see a single valid opinion that will change.

There is no comparisson between poiting out an exploit, knowing how it works, why it works, and demonstrating it's an exploit, talking about how AI Pathfinding algorithms work and showing the solution to this problem dates back to AI behavior from RTS games from 3 decades ago, also pointing out it couldn't possibly work against anything that had the slightest awareness of what's going on.

And people making up BS pretending they are making a point as they compare real life military tactics with the lemmings game, ridiculous opinions opinions deserve to be ridiculed, in fact, calling it an opinion doesn't shield it from being wrong, I'm still waiting for the answer for all the question's I've made, the few attempts ranged between "But I like the exploit" to "I don't know how to play the game and/or refuse to use any of the tools present in the game itself, then I will say there are no tools to deal with it" to "If the AI acts properly then my useless defenses will become useless and I'll just have wasted resources" , which is odd because some of these are the same kind of people who would redily recommend cheatmods to deal with other people's problems in their games right in this forum.

But sure, few people who have engaged with the subect and were't just trolling were treated with respect, there just weren't that many, most people aren't even willing to listen and understand why they are wrong. Like I've said many times, this is a single player game and nobody is judging people from exploiting a game they can't win otherwise, let's just be honest about it, I don't see many people claiming all of the games the spiffing brit have covered with exploits is the only way to play those games either, ignoring the fact that are thousands of players who don't exploit the AI and can play it just fine invalidating the whole "issue" with raid sizes, this seems to be a cancer cultivated over the years specifically in this community, and to be this resistant to fixing the issue is very telling.

[Raymond]

AI do capable of doing what you just said. Ludeon Studio just deliberately make those behaviors late game otherwise most players won't be able to play this game. Also, do put in mind that unlike real life, you don't usually have top down view of enemy defense so you could not possibly know what kind of exploit the enemies are using, if any. Not to mention killbox is a very common defensive feature around the world. They are legit defensive strategy, not some exploit.

[VoiD]

YariMurai eredeti hozzászólása:

AI do capable of doing what you just said. Ludeon Studio just deliberately make those behaviors late game otherwise most players won't be able to play this game. Also, do put in mind that unlike real life, you don't usually have top down view of enemy defense so you could not possibly know what kind of exploit the enemies are using, if any. Not to mention killbox is a very common defensive feature around the world. They are legit defensive strategy, not some exploit.

Wrong.

[Mountain King]

So you seem to making a lot of arguments based on realism (or at least your impression of it). It seems odd that you find it more believable and realistic for the raiders to shoot their way through a 10 foot thick masonry wall with small arms rather than to simply decide that your base is too well-fortified to be worth it. But it wouldn't be fun if they just gave up. Nor would it be fun to deal with raids where everyone is a sapper. It's almost like fun is really what matters here, like it's a game or something.

[lil_foe]

is there anyway this VoiD guy is playing on anything else other then low mid to low difficulty with a nice storyteller and with a bunch of mods that make the game easier?
is there any other player in this discussion advocating for the playstyle of not using killboxes?

VoiD eredeti hozzászólása:

Why are u talking about using psychic lances like they are shortbows?where do u get so many?buy from traders?where do u get the silver for that?
How do u have 28 colonists? I had 12 and randy threw 6 consecutive raids at me, 3 of which were spaced so litlle apart that my injuried colonists didnt even had time to get to my hospital let alone accually get treated. those raids were followed by 3 freaquishly large manhunting packs.
Why do u assume ppl have mortars set up, rocket launchers in storage etc. before getting mech raids to deal with? I just finished my smg reserch and received a raid of 15 mechs.
Why are u acting like raids are the hardest threats presented to our colonies? Do starvation, diseases, mood, enviroment effects (drought, volcanic winter etc.), colonists hating eachother, manhunter packs dont bother u at all?
Killboxes IRL: did u ever visit a non renovated castle or a historically accuaratlly renovated castle? did u ever noticed how small and narrow the doors within those castles are? its not because ppl were so much smaller back then but it was built with intent to only allow for a single person to enter/exit rooms to make them easily defendable if it ever comes to that. Did u ever saw a accurate depiction of 1st world war machine gun placements along the line of defense? 1 was set on the far left and the other on the far right, both were aimed toward the center (distance between them was a bit less than their max range). why? this is how one simulates a killbox when defending a line. Did u ever noticed how germany invaded a whole other country (belgium) to avoid french killbox (maginot line) in ww2?
Regarding the 'no one has ever defended a castle by opening its main gates' comment. I can only vaguely remember 1 example from history. It was chinese general or emperor (not sure what his title was). He had no army to speak of, at least not in comparison to the army attacking his castle, but even back then he had reputation of being a master tactican. When he heard of the enemy approaching he oreder everybody inside the walls wit hgates wide open. When the enemy general saw that he got so scared he immidietlly oreder his troops to turn around. Granted the defending general had no plan for what to do if the enemies accually came in but still, he won a disfavorable battle in a matter of minutes by opening the gates.

[VoiD]

lil_foe eredeti hozzászólása:

is there anyway this VoiD guy is playing on anything else other then low mid to low difficulty with a nice storyteller and with a bunch of mods that make the game easier?
is there any other player in this discussion advocating for the playstyle of not using killboxes?

VoiD eredeti hozzászólása:

Why are u talking about using psychic lances like they are shortbows?where do u get so many?buy from traders?where do u get the silver for that?
How do u have 28 colonists? I had 12 and randy threw 6 consecutive raids at me, 3 of which were spaced so litlle apart that my injuried colonists didnt even had time to get to my hospital let alone accually get treated. those raids were followed by 3 freaquishly large manhunting packs.
Why do u assume ppl have mortars set up, rocket launchers in storage etc. before getting mech raids to deal with? I just finished my smg reserch and received a raid of 15 mechs.
Why are u acting like raids are the hardest threats presented to our colonies? Do starvation, diseases, mood, enviroment effects (drought, volcanic winter etc.), colonists hating eachother, manhunter packs dont bother u at all?
Killboxes IRL: did u ever visit a non renovated castle or a historically accuaratlly renovated castle? did u ever noticed how small and narrow the doors within those castles are? its not because ppl were so much smaller back then but it was built with intent to only allow for a single person to enter/exit rooms to make them easily defendable if it ever comes to that. Did u ever saw a accurate depiction of 1st world war machine gun placements along the line of defense? 1 was set on the far left and the other on the far right, both were aimed toward the center (distance between them was a bit less than their max range). why? this is how one simulates a killbox when defending a line. Did u ever noticed how germany invaded a whole other country (belgium) to avoid french killbox (maginot line) in ww2?
Regarding the 'no one has ever defended a castle by opening its main gates' comment. I can only vaguely remember 1 example from history. It was chinese general or emperor (not sure what his title was). He had no army to speak of, at least not in comparison to the army attacking his castle, but even back then he had reputation of being a master tactican. When he heard of the enemy approaching he oreder everybody inside the walls wit hgates wide open. When the enemy general saw that he got so scared he immidietlly oreder his troops to turn around. Granted the defending general had no plan for what to do if the enemies accually came in but still, he won a disfavorable battle in a matter of minutes by opening the gates.

Feel free to watch it live, not everybody is terrible and relies on exploits to play a game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pkJ5ArF9os
And yes, I was very rusty after several years not touching the game, and seeing the DLC for the first time, not using priorities properly, not remembering how hydroponics worked, having outdated info from previous patches, etc... And I STILL managed to survive with a flat base, building no fortifications for a long, long time, just goes to show how people pretending this is impossible are full of ♥♥♥♥.

The total number of mods that alter the gameplay is zero, all of them come down to skins, UI changes and the one that does something different is achtung but I won't start using it until ep 40 or something.

Now, after getting rid of your strawman let's talk about psy lances:
Nearly every town you visit will have at least one you can purchase, sometimes they have both the stun and the zerk version, they, however, more often than not cost less than ZERO, because they armors and/or pawns you can get out of them are often worth more than the price you just paid for them, a single marine chestpiece can have 2x the value of a psy lance and the lance still has a second charge you can use for a 4x value, if you get some bionics too you could be getting even more out of each one, plus great prisoners.

This is also part of the problem, people who got used to exploiting the AI, not even knowing the game offers way too many tools to deal with their simple problems, they just don't use it because they are playing with all difficulty turned off, relying on an exploit instead of actually enganging with any of the game's mechanics.

If you're playing at any difficulty with killboxes rest assured, you're playing below the easiest difficulties, you don't have raids, you have free supply drops, if raids were off the game would actually be harder.

Edit: Just to make this easier, the full list:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2422387444
But, as you could see, some mods add some items like the ancient species pack or nyaron, and I specifically went out of my way to sell/burn all of the special weapons, meaning the AI can use them against me, but I never touched any of the mod weapons myself, and I've never seen my imperial allies bring anything other than their own imperial weapons either

Samael eredeti hozzászólása:

So you seem to making a lot of arguments based on realism (or at least your impression of it). It seems odd that you find it more believable and realistic for the raiders to shoot their way through a 10 foot thick masonry wall with small arms rather than to simply decide that your base is too well-fortified to be worth it. But it wouldn't be fun if they just gave up. Nor would it be fun to deal with raids where everyone is a sapper. It's almost like fun is really what matters here, like it's a game or something.

Realism is one aspect yeah, but the main one is the exploiting, it's not a matter of opinion, it's literal and objective, people are abusing the way the pathfinding algorithm works to force enemies to kill themselves, it's not a good defense, it's not even a defense, it's just an exploit against the AI, nothing more, nothing less. The fact that it would never work against any human player in any circunstance is proof of that, a player creating a killbox to counter another player would just end up with destroyed walls, wasted resources and an open base anyway, possibly from the other side of the wall where there's nothing.

As for shooting up the walls, yeah, it's possible if you want to, bricks and stone aren't adamantium, though it would be unlikely a RL situation would try something like that, IRL you'd probably see explosives being used instead, medieval walls couldn't be pierced by siege weapons because they would leave a lot of rubble on it's path anyway but that rule did change a little with the invention of gunpowder, granted massive stone walls could still offer some protection, it wasn't on the same level, and eventually they weren't even worth the effort anyway so people have started using towers, perimeter walls, barbed wire, bunkers, trenches, etc...

That being said none of this is really relevant when the point is: There's an exploit in the game that needs to be fixed, the AI isn't "attacking your home", it doesn't even have any cohesion, it's not an AI, it doesn't behave like a player, it's a bunch of individual units running a script, often waiting around, then running a pathfinding alg such as A* calculating, numerically, the shortest/smoothest path towards your supplies, knowing this you can exploit it, they will not make formations, they will not reform, they will not refuse to go through a tiny corridor and get split by different movement modifiers, they will clog the entrance and go in one by one because there is no thinking, of any kind, involved, it just moves forward, calculates the next smoothest path, moves forward, calculates the next, etc...

The AI can't see, understand or realize what is a wall, what is a turret, what is a base, it just sees a grid with numerical values around it and picks the smallest number over and over again, and when something is near it activates the shooting/cover script instead, it's fairly simple, and it's being exploited, if you know this you can purposelly crete a rough path with higher numerical values where you don't want the AI to go, and make a clean, quick path for the AI to get drawn towards, as they will always be forced to take the fastest path.

Knowing the rules of AI pathfinding and abusing them is no different from knowing the rules of ranged combat in Total War and dancing around with a single unit to make them waste all their arrows, so some smartass can come here and try to argue how real life soldiers really would just shoot all of their arrows against a single guy moving back and forth until there is nothing left, and how that's pure realism and a "good tactic"

Another example: Putting 19 of your units into the woods in Total War Shogun 2 and a single visible unit outside, on the opposite side of the map, so the AI will position every single soldier they have on the wrong side, then leave the woods with 5k men and just climb the undefended walls, because you know how the AI is programmed to place units based on the visibility they have, so you get to abuse it and get free cities in "sieges".

Another example: When you're playing Evil Genius and you know at the tutorial part of the game you can't trigger the super agents or even base attacks, so you just refuse to proceed further and farm millions of gold, and research every technology in the game before it actually starts.

etc..

These are all basically the same thing, people taking advantage of a virtual enviroment that does not understand what is going on and can't expect to have a counter to every possible exploit a player might find, some people like the spiffing brit do it for fun, that's fine, and his videos are great, but he's aware of what he's doing, it's the mental midgets pretending to be playing the game, refusing any attempts to fix a known exploit and saying just because they play like braindead chipmunks everyone else must be the same, telling the world that the game would be impossible without exploits even though thousands of players do play the game properly and can get much further than them without them, some even pumping up the difficulty to very high levels doing some crazy stuff like naked brutality @ the north pole, something I'm personally not capable of doing yet.

Edit: here's what I'm talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsParg61xGw
You're not fooling anybody, there is no thought involved, a killbox just abused this mathematical number to force enemies into a single entry point.
If you do it 999 times it will work 999 times.

Another Edit for those looking for another example:
https://youtu.be/VbaYMGUjzBo?t=752
At 12:32 he shows how he can handle a massive tribal army out in the open, as a caravan using only 7 pawns, to those who are curious and asking about basic RW tips on how to actually play and engage with the game's content.

at 16:06 he gets swarmed by a big army of outworlders, wielding rockets and he still isn't using any fortifications at all, who could have guessed those consumable items are actually meant to be used, instead of stored for ever.

500% threat, no defenses, no fortifications, no killboxes, massive wealth, 7 guys.